


i want a trouble-maker for a lover

by harklights



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, HQ Rarepair Week, M/M, Slice of Life, Slow Build, there's alcohol and smoking and party stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-03-20 04:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3636282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harklights/pseuds/harklights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it’s a slow night, a normal night, and ennoshita is almost okay with it when a man with a dragon on his back joins him on the balcony</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for hq rarepair week day one, beginnings/celebration. it's inspired by yamcguchi‘s motorcycler!tanaka richboy!ennoshita art. i plan on continuing using the prompts for future chapturs so look forward to (hopefully) weekly updates! enjoy!

Ennoshita’s staring out at the dark sleeping city resting below him when the sound of the balcony door sliding open cleaves the silence in two, spilling a noisy EDM beat into the gaping air. The music is cranked up loud enough for Ennoshita to wonder if the sound system’s speakers will survive the entire night. He wonders at how they’ve yet to receive a noise violation either. But then, when one resides in a spacious penthouse tall enough to scrape against the Tokyo sky the risk of irritating the neighbors became a virtual non-issue. No one ever beats against the ceiling with a broomstick, demanding silence. No one has ever filed a complaint. The walls are thick. Even the balcony’s glass had muffled the thumping party down to a tolerable level—interrupted now as whoever had joined him fails to completely close the door. Ennoshita should have locked it after coming outside. The frenetic song that seeps to his ears instantly shatters whatever peace he had been able to steal, and he’s suddenly as stifled as if he were in among that crowd of tipsy, thriving young people. His already lukewarm mood drops like a stone to the bottom of a lake, disturbing its silt to allow a single thought to bubble up to the surface:

He doesn’t want to be here anymore. He really doesn’t.

It's about time for him to leave anyway. Determined to check out his uninvited guest, Ennoshita glances over a shoulder to see a dragon instead.

The twisted body of a blue dragon emblazoned on a man’s back. Even beneath the muted lighting its scales are intricate and bright enough to stand out against the crisp leather jacket it decorates. The dragon’s elegant shape lends it a sense of motion, like it could writhe into the air at any moment. The elegance ends once his eyes reach the creature’s head. Its mouth curls wide open to reveal rows of sharp white teeth and vicious looking canines matched by equally viscous claws. Scaled brows furl over a pair of wild red eyes and great tufts of flame blows out from its mouth, landing close to the man’s right shoulder. It’s so questionably gaudy that Ennoshita looks at it for a long time, not sure what impression he’s receiving other than an _impression,_ but then the person reaches one hand to a back jean pocket and the pack of cigarettes tucked there, squaring his shoulders in the process, and in the brief moment when the leather shifts Ennoshita can almost see the dragon move.

The illusion breaks when the guy swivels around.

“Oh holy shit, I didn’t see you at all.”

Ennoshita turns around too, resting his back against balcony railing. It’s high and glass too, and he likes the illusion of leaning against nothing at all. “That happens a lot.”

“Seriously?” The guy says. It sounds rhetorical so Ennoshita answers with the shrug of a shoulder. He doesn’t have a loud presence, he knows, and he doesn’t demand much attention when he steps into a room.

The person before him looks like he would comfortably bask in a spotlight.

He has a shaved head and a sharpness to him that’s not all caused by the heavily punk-inspired clothes he wore, although the style did accentuate it. Beneath the leather jacket was a black tank shirt branded with a jagged American rock band that Ennoshita has never actually listened to before. His jeans are held to his hips by a studded belt paired with a similar bracelet strapped to one wrist, its spikes gleaming metallic. Silver chains drip from one of his belt loops and disappear into a back pocket, probably secured to a wallet. Scuffed up black chucks completes the look. The only accessories at odds with the outfit are the three colorful buttons pinned to lapel of his jacket, too small and distant to make out the details.

Maybe it’s the slant of his eyes that gives Ennoshita that impression of sharpness, or perhaps the quick, wild smile that the man aims in his direction as he taps out a cigarette with practiced ease and places it between his lips, speaking around it. “Anyway, mind if I join ya?”

Ennoshita blinks, quick and thoughtful. A part of him wants to refuse. Making polite small talk feels like too much tonight, yet searching out another private spot is even less appealing. “…If you can close the door first?”

He complies. The door slides shut with a neat click, muffling the sounds of the party once more. Just a little, Ennoshita feels like he can breathe again. Then he’s joined by the other and they both turn to face outside, standing a few respectable feet apart. Ennoshita folds his arms over the railing and hears two clicks of a lighter, a lull as he takes a long drag, and then a blown out sigh that releases a curl of smoke into the air. It’s chased by a low, impressed whistle. “It looks awesome all the way up here.”

“The view is nice,” Ennoshita agrees, closing his eyes against a light breeze. It tickles the scent of smoke toward his nose, acerbic but tolerable.  _Tolerable company so far._

“But damn, it’s high! I never know if I’m allowed out on these things. It figures these rich city boys are hiding the best view from us, but at least they know how to throw a good party.”

The comment hangs between them for a beat before Ennoshita blinks his eyes open, looking over the winking city lights. “That’s good,” he says, “Because this is my apartment.”

The guy chokes and pinches his cigarette between two fingers, flicking ash onto the balcony deck. He seems abashed at that brazen act of littering, at least, and swivels his eyes around. “You’re shittin’ me!” He exclaims. Ennoshita inclines his head. “You’re… You’re not shittin’ me. Whoa, wait, you’re Ennoshita Chikara? The real one? The son of the Ennoshita family that owns most of the—“

“Yes,” he interrupts a little too quickly to be polite, but the words scratched too close to a topic he doesn’t want to think about tonight. “That’s me.”

Balancing one wrist over the railing, the man gives him a once over that nearly has Ennoshita saying  _It’s dark but I can still see you, you know._  “Oi, you’re like a legend and ghost story around here! Everyone says you don’t bother staying at your own parties half the time and ditch way before midnight rolls ‘round. Thought you’d look different though…”

“Oh,” Ennoshita says, wetting his lips. What was he supposed to say to that? That aloof, constructed image others had made for him is so fictitious it’s like hearing stories about a complete stranger. He stays quiet, letting a half-awkward silence cool between them. He thinks they must be done until the man pipes up a long moment later, breaking the quiet before it grew stifling.

“I’m just thinking— Why would you ditch your own party, man?” He tsks, as if willingly leaving a party early is unbelievable. And yeah, it might be a strange to abandon one’s own party and home for a few hours, Ennoshita supposes, but so far he hasn’t dealt with any serious property damage or theft. “They’re not bad! You throw them at random, right, so it’s kind of a big deal if you can get in here, like you’re rolling with the cool kids. It blows up on social media every time.”

Ennoshita shifts beneath the weight of the praise, feeling distanced from all the hype once more. These things he throws aren’t well-planned events deserving of some lofty social stigma. Cool kids, rich kids, spoiled kids, in crowds and out crowds - as a mostly absentee host it all strikes him as somewhat ridiculous, something that could be pulled straight from a teenaged sitcom. All he does is open his doors, really, like one would open the windows in the middle of a storm. His guests swept in, churned up waves of commotion, and ebbed away during the ghostly hours of the morning, leaving a carnage of empty bottles and paper plates in their wake.

There was something eerie about standing in the middle of his living room after chasing out the last few stragglers, assessing his home for damage and seeing the marks of so many people littered around. It felt something like the electric calm one feels upon spilling out of a movie theater after spending hours watching a fast-paced action movie, or the sensation of coming to a sudden stop on a rollercoaster and feeling the rest of yourself catch up. That same sensation would float down on him as he cleaned up: A jacket thrown across the couch, a smudge of lipstick on his good set of glasses, a forgotten cell phone with a lock screen he can’t figure out even after minutes of fiddling around with it. Something about it all satisfies the roiling discontent he feels while standing on the edges of the party itself. It settles right besides the yawning feeling that the world will keep spinning with or without his active participation.

His classmates who know his socioeconomic standing tell him the same thing though. That there’s not much point in being wealthy if he doesn’t have fun and use it. And it’s true that he has his privileges. A good school, a good apartment, two parents who provide him with a generous allowance that he deposits into a checking account without a second thought, keeping only what he needs to purchase food and transportation fare throughout the week. His taste in fashion is nice but not extravagant. He's more than content to buy things from a shopping mall as he is getting clothing from designer brand boutiques or the online categories his mother occasionally linked him via text or e-mail.

A lot of people might think such modest spending is a waste when he has plentiful resources at his disposal, but the greater truth is that Ennoshita doesn’t feel a need to use any of the money he owns because he doesn’t  _want_  much of anything. Nothing too materialistic, none of the fancy trappings and baubles and shiny cars, and definitely nothing excessive like these parties that began as private get-togethers and slowly snowballed into big affairs filled with strangers rather than familiar faces.

“To be honest I don’t know a lot of people in there.” Ennoshita pauses, then allows the honesty to continue flowing. “And it stops being fun like that.”

“Then why d’you..?” He sweeps a hand around, gesturing to everything and nothing in particular, then takes another drag. The cigarette’s tip glows a violent red before he angles his head away and blows a stream of white. “I mean, it’s your party so you should make it fun for yourself.”

“I think it’s become a habit. When I’m bored I just set things up. I don’t hate helping everyone have a good time, so…”

“Okay but – and it’s cool if you don’t, I’m not here to judge you or anything – but don’t you have any friends to hang out with for this?”

“Of course I do,” Ennoshita's smile is small and amused. His two best friends are as averse to hard partying as he is. “This isn’t a tragedy.”

“From where I’m standing it looks like you’re having a sucky time.” The guy mutters, looking abashed again, color resting high on his cheeks while he fumblingly snubs his cigarette out on the surface of the carton, cursing when another sprinkle of ash floats to the ground. Ennoshita wonders why this stranger seems to care at all. He takes pity on him though and picks up an abandoned ash tray sitting on a nearby chair, offering it up. It’s accepted with muttered thanks. The other quickly lights up a second smoke while attempting to balance the tray on the rail but it’s rounded and it doesn’t work, so he stoops to place it by their feet instead. “—You’re all alone on a balcony. You’ve got, like, really old wine from France in there that you’re not even drinking.”

“Then maybe you should bring it out here,” he hears himself suggest. They both pause to look each at each other. The man looks as surprised as Ennoshita feels, but a moment later his face melts into the kind of grin that suggests he might be a bit of an enabler if given half the chance.

“No joke?” He asks, tentatively hopeful.

Ennoshita shrugs, letting the impulsive offer lie. It’s permission enough to rouse the guy into action. He can barely slot his cigarette into the ash tray fast enough. “Dude, I’ll grab the whole fucking bottle.”

He seals the promise with a startling cheer and leaves as abruptly as he came. Ennoshita doesn’t miss the way he takes a step and doubles back to slide the balcony door closed with a little too much force.

Without the steady conversation to distract him Ennoshita’s thoughts come barring down on him again, accompanied by the type of silence that always seems heavier in the wake of departed company. But it’s gentle, bearable, a trickle of a stream rather than tug of an ocean’s currents trying to pull him under. He lets each thought swirl by as he slides to the ground, back pressed against the railing’s glass, one leg crooked at the knee. The recessed floor lights that skirt along the edges of the balcony offer a clean, comforting glow. For a moment the wispy curl of smoke coming from the dying cigarette reminds him of gray incense sticks poking out from his family shrine at home, but he forcefully blinks the image away and stares ahead, grounding himself in the present. Facing the interior of his apartment, he can see people moving about, flashes of smiling teeth, and bodies moving to the heavy bass line thumping away. It’s like watching a lively scene from a flashy Hollywood movie and Ennoshita smiles, toying with the idea of slipping in unnoticed and recording a piece of it on his cell phone.

Slowly, anticipation enters him as he waits; a niggling hope that maybe even with his self-imposed isolation tonight will turn out okay.

A few minutes later the cigarette sputters a final chunk of ash and dies. The night air starts growing chilly against his bare arms, and the man with the dragon on his back has yet to return.

 _Fair enough,_ Ennoshita thinks, tilting his head back to look at the washed out sky, hardly a star in sight. The city’s light pollution is a constant, smothering thing. He’s spoiled with memories of how breathtaking the stars look in the countryside where they could shine freely and freckle across their dark canvas. He used to seek out familiar constellations and play connect-the-dot with them, trying to imagine the creatures and objects they were supposed to represent, but they all hide themselves from him now. He's forgotten half the spring constellations anyway.

A dull clang makes him flinch, eyes leaping back down to see the man returned and struggling to open the door around the haul piled in his hands. An unopened wine bottle with shot glasses turned over its top is clutched in one hand, two wine glasses balanced in the other, a bottle of something golden tucked under the left arm, and a corkscrew poking out from between two fingers.

“I got it,” he announces when Ennoshita stands up to help, and Ennoshita pauses to watch him ram a hip against the door handle in an attempt at shoving it further open. He only succeeds in performing an awkward gyration.

Ennoshita ignores the plea for self-sufficiency and walks over, taking the wine and glasses before something goes crashing to the ground. He lets the man pass the threshold and slides the door behind them, turning the wine to peek at it's label.

“2004 Pétrus?” He reads in soft astonishment. It had been a gift from a family friend two years ago when he finally hit the legal drinking age; expensive and untouched. “Did you raid my locked wine cabinet?” 

“I ain’t a thief,” the other retorts with enough hardness that it takes him aback. But his guest’s head is angled down, hands busy setting the tequila and shot glasses down with a clank. Ennoshita can’t tell if he’s done any serious insult but the possibility that he has dries any lingering humor left in his mind.

“Nevermind that,” the guy says, tone half awkward like he’s just said something wrong. He takes a seat, back against the railing, and clears his throat. “Get down here. We’re doing shots.”

So Ennoshita swallows the apology languishing on the tip of his tongue re-takes the spot he had earlier. The ash tray is cleared away and replaced by their drinks. He watches the nearly empty bottle of tequila get twisted open and poured, golden liquid spilling neatly into each shot glass. One gets scooted in his direction. He puts his fingers over the rim, eyes flicking up to catch the other already looking his way.

“What’s your name?” Ennoshita asks.

“Tanaka.” A gleam of a piercing Ennoshita hadn’t noticed before peeks out from his tongue as it works around the vowels. “Tanaka Ryuunosuke.”

“That matches your jacket.” The words are hesitant but Tanaka accepts the offering with ease, giving it momentum.

“It’s flashy right? The people who got it for me are both really damn flashy,” Tanaka chides, grinning like he honestly doesn’t mind those flashy people. Relieved at the dissipating tension, Ennoshita smiles and looks down, picking his glass up and bringing it to his lips.

“Hold on,” Tanaka cuts in, stopping the drink’s course halfway to his mouth. “No half-assing this, we gotta do a proper toast. Raise your glass!”

“There’s nothing to toast about.” Ennoshita raises his glass anyway, feeling ridiculous when Tanaka lifts his drink even higher and keeps it there until he matches its height so that they’re both sitting there, arms raised into the air. Tanaka’s liveliness has a weird infectiousness to it though, the kind of charisma that can pick you up and make you forget your own embarrassment.

“We’re doing it anyway ’cause you need to have some fun. Make your own celebration! The night’s still young and so are we!  _Cheers!”_ he shouts in English, crashing their glasses together with enough force to send their contents sloshing around. Ennoshita grimaces and switches hands, flicking amber drops off his fingers while Tanaka knocks back his drink with enthusiasm. His face scrunches up, a satisfied exhale rushes from his mouth, and then he’s watching Ennoshita expectantly.

Tequila is far from his favorite liquor and shooting good tequila reposado feels like a waste compared to the cheaper stuff he knows he laid out inside, but he brings the glass to his mouth and drains it in one go, feeling the warm burn of alcohol slide all the way down his throat. Heat settles low in his stomach, tingling through his core.

Tanaka’s still looking at him when he taps the shot glass down, his eyes blown wider. “Did I fill that with water?”

“What?” Ennoshita breathes a laugh, reaching for the corkscrew. “No.”

“You just look so innocent I was expecting some sputtering or something.”

“It’s not my first time,” Ennoshita says, and the smirk that flickers across Tanaka’s face is almost enough to embarrass him. He’s not imbibed nearly enough to begin entertaining accidental innuendos, so he lets it roll away into the night. “It was just a shot,” he continues, looking away from the interested gleam in those eyes.

Tanaka reaches for the neck of the tequila. “Up for another?”

“I’ll stick to the wine.”

With a mumble of ‘more for me’ Tanaka pours himself another shot. Ennoshita busies himself with cutting the foil from around the bottle’s neck. Discarding it, he flips the corkscrew over and pushes the worm into the cork, steadies the bottle, and twists until the cork wiggles out with a pop. Gathering the two glasses side by side, he cradles the bottle in one hand and pours a general amount into the first bowl. Deep red liquid falls past the bottle’s opening in soft gurgles. A silky stream swirls and settles to a stop after he gives a smooth twist of his wrist to ensure that not a drop spills over the lip. He learned this etiquette years ago for the fancy events he occasionally had to attend, when he would inevitably grow bored enough to turn to people watching. The attentive poise of the servers always captured his attention the most, but when he began to learn it for himself all of the intricate steps felt completely unnecessary – almost as tedious as tedious as practicing proper tea pouring as a kid. But now he enjoys the simple ritual for its own sake, finds the motions strangely satisfying whether he’s pouring wine or water. He moves to fill the second glass with the same care. It’s a little messier this time, the practiced flick resulting in a bead of red trickling down the side of the bottle. Without napkins to wipe it away with Ennoshita simply swipes a thumb over the mess and brings the digit to his lips, licking the taste of fruit laced with the smoky remnants of tequila into his mouth.

He slides the first glass over and glances back up in time to see Tanaka’s eyes skate to the side like one would divert one’s gaze after catching a stranger’s glance across the opposite end of a train. Ennoshita’s not sure what the fleeting connection means, so he assumes it’s nothing of consequence. At best a reaction to slightly poor table manners that could be considered distasteful.

So he rubs thumb and forefinger together, skin already growing sticky, and opts for bringing his drink up, swirling it gently to watch the liquid lap against the glass. The wine looks even darker without the proper lighting. It's deep, maroon, but there are pretty glimmers of brighter ruby illuminated by the soft glow that does reach the glass. A second later he pauses, closes his eyes on impulse, and takes a sniff, feeling too aware of his own motions in the company of someone he doesn't know, but the wine had been a gift. The least he can do is properly appreciate it. He's greeted by an inviting aroma rich with the scent of grapes, sweet, strong but not as assaulting as the tequila; a good Merlot. He tips the glass against his lips and takes a slow sip, allowing the full-bodied flavor of the liquid to coat his tongue, and then he swallows. A tang of blackberries blooms and grows sharper when he inhales a breath of cool night air, letting that coat his tongue too. The sensation which tickles his palette is reminiscent of the freshness of drinking water right after tasting mint – but softer, cloying, smoother. He hums, and this time when a silence does descend on them it’s not totally uncomfortable. He's half-aware of Tanaka glancing his way every once in a while but there’s no pressure to strike up a conversation even when they stay silent for a long time, unhurriedly draining their glasses.

Tanaka releases an abrupt grunt and turns his body around so he’s sitting cross-legged, facing the city instead of the interior, his own drink couched a little clumsily in his hand. He looks like an imagine Ennoshita would want to take a picture of: thin tan fingers wrapped around a gleaming wine glass, tapering off into a wrist decorated with a chunky spiked bracelet.

“This view is seriously awesome,” Tanaka offers.

“Yeah,” Ennoshita agrees, slow and relaxed, feeling the thin vibrations of music beneath his palm as he leans it onto the cool ground. He feels that bottom-of-the-lake feeling surge somewhere inside of him again, but this time it's nice, like he's stuck inside a vast dome constructed of the Tokyo sky and there's nothing he has to do but sit and watch it. “It’s my favorite one.”


	2. distance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no excuses as to why this took so long to update except maybe the word LIFE in angry caps with a little asterisk that says *no inspiration* tacked onto the end of it in fine print. it’s been more than a year, legitimately, so i apologize for any shifts in narrative style as we move on from here because a lot of time has passed between starting and finishing this chapter. and boy am i ready to progress
> 
> new tag: slow build

Ennoshita is, in all honestly, someone who possesses a light alcohol tolerance for even the casual social drinker. It’s in moments like these when he’s curled onto his side and blinking awake from a nap he doesn’t remember slipping into that he’s most keenly aware of the shortcoming. 

He’s not sure how long he’s been dozing, for the night sky hanging around him is as dark as ever and muted music still pours to his ears from within his apartment, its genre now switched from feverish EDM and rock music to light electro-jazz melodies carried by the husky trill of a woman’s voice. French, he blearily guesses, listening to a throaty back vowel taper off into cool instrumentals. He wonders whose phone or ipod has managed to steal the speakers for a song like that. His sluggish senses are slow to grace him with any feedback more useful than _stiff_ and _cold,_ but when a sharp gust of wind tickles across his cheek it doesn’t take much deduction skills to realize, with a shiver and a great deal of chagrin, that he’s fallen asleep out on the balcony. 

The ground is an uncomfortably hard slab against his back when he rolls onto it, squinting up at the washed out city sky, stars still blotted out save for a few persistent twinkles of the strongest ones. The motion agitates a piece of fabric slung over his chest, making it pool down to his waist. Ennoshita blinks in confusion, his vision slowly losing its blurry remnants of sleep. His sense of time is fuzzy but he definitely doesn’t recall bringing a jacket out to stave off the steadily plummeting temperatures.

Propping himself up on one elbow, he looks down to see a dragon splayed across his lap and thinks, _Ah, that’s right._

That jacket – Tanaka’s leather jacket – feels smooth when he strokes a hand across it, fingertips pausing over the swirling fire spitting out of the beast’s mouth. He can tell by its softness that it’s real leather rather than the imitation stuff, clearly well-worn but still in fine condition. The impression of gaudiness he felt when he first he laid eyes on it gives way to a quiet appreciation for the handiwork he can see beneath his hand. The dragon looks hand-painted, a little chipped around the edges but no less intricate for the tiny flaws. Each blue scale is a delicate swoop, each stroke of its beard thick and bold with frenzied motion, the curves of its teeth and talons sharpened into crisp white points. 

It’s pretty up close. Fierce and full of life.

Ennoshita stands up, wincing at the sound of cracking joints, and folds the jacket over one arm. For a long moment he simply stands still, taking stock of himself. He can’t help the way drinking mellows him out and he’s endlessly grateful that he doesn’t shed all of his inhibitions and transform into the stereotype of a wild college student when he has enough of it burning through his system. But he’s been regaled with enough stories to know how his growing tipsy and sleepy apparently, and according to several reliable acquaintances, translates into him unknowingly giving _‘bedroom eyes’_ (in one friend’s regrettable parlance) at everything and everyone in the vicinity. He thinks it’s an extended curse of his usual sleepy expression, the one he’s sometimes grateful to for providing him an outwardly calm appearance that he doesn’t always feel on the inside, but he doesn’t let himself worry about that potential disaster now. 

A nice buzz still warms him and the prospect of going inside doesn’t make him feel like he’s braving a storm anymore. He’s comfortably tipsy. Maybe a little drunk. He’s never been good at divining when one turned into the other, yet the night feels intimate instead of endless now. Enough to go on until the party winds down.

The ash tray still rests on the ground, filled with Tanaka’s two snubbed out cigarettes. Ennoshita stoops down to pick it up and place it back in its original spot, then plucks up a discarded wine glass to see a white slip of paper tucked beneath it. He snatches it before it skitters away on a stray breeze, glancing over neat black print of a grocery store receipt. He nearly crumples it up as an errant piece of trash when, on a sudden whim, he flips the receipt over instead to see a handwritten scrawl slanting down the middle of it: 

**_thought it’d be cruel & unusual to wake you up (you’re such a lightweight!) so i’m leaving this behind. Take good care of it, city boy_ **

**_2XX-XXX1_ **

It’s a somewhat stilted note. It’s terrible handwriting too, clearly penned by a less than sober hand, but he’s muddled through worse before. He reads it twice, finds his lips curling up in amusement at the truth held between that parenthesized comment, and then his eyes are drawn to the phone number placed beneath the comment, written there without preamble. 

For a moment all he can do is stare at it, wondering if the language of flirtation will always be hard for him to parse, wondering if he’s overreaching by assuming it flirtatious at all, curious on whether Tanaka left the jacket intentionally so he would be more obliged to contact him first, or if it was all an impromptu act of chivalry. Or both. Does the request to take care of the jacket mean that Tanaka has already abandoned the party, or had it been left with him only a few minutes ago? Was he still inside? Something about the jacket makes Ennoshita think it’s too meaningful to leave thrown over a stranger just like that, but it’s entirely possible that Tanaka has simply forgotten to come back for it like some of his guests always do. Ennoshita runs a veritable lost-and-found service the days following a party, even if he all he does is gather everything up and leave the items down with the security guard for a day or two, who’s only so indulgent of him because they’ve been chatting with each other kindly since the morning he moved in two years ago. 

Sometimes the owners never come back to reclaim their belongings. They might live too far away or not know how to go about recovering their things. Sometimes Ennoshita doesn’t have the heart to throw out the more unique items either, even the mundane ones. The tote umbrella he might borrow when he’s misplaced his own somewhere in the too-big apartment, enlivened by the feeling of holding an unfamiliar handle in his hand, musing about whom the umbrella may have sheltered in the past. The thrown off fashion scarves and rings left atop the bathroom sink that he would curiously twirl between his fingers, most of them too small to fit over more than a pinky. A high school class ring left on his sofa, once, with enough information engraved on the band for him to call the school’s office and request the owner’s home address so he could mail it back to them. 

He still has that thank you letter pinned somewhere in the mess of the corkboard hanging above his dresser.

He has a small box for the forever forgotten things too, forgotten again at the back of his bedroom closet.

Sighing, he appeases his racing thoughts by tucking the note into a back pocket, putting it firmly out of sight and out of mind to focus on the task at hand.

He tidies up the rest of the mess. The bottle of Merlot and one of the wine glasses are nowhere to be seen. He doesn’t fret. He’s burdened with enough objects by the time he finishes clearing everything away, barely managing to slide the door open and flick off the balcony lights before heading inside. Loud music folds over him like a summer heat the moment he crosses the threshold. He tolerates it just like an unwanted heat wave, taking a deep breath and steeling himself to endure without complaint.

It’s unnecessarily hard to resist eyeing every single person he passes to search for signs of Tanaka. A slant of bold English letters on a band t-shirt makes him double take. The gleam of faux-metal spikes on a slim bracelet catches his eye from across the room but it’s not Tanaka either, and neither is the owner of the loud, raucous voice that momentarily bursts above the music like a storm cloud. He feels ridiculous; arrives to the kitchen as if stepping into an oasis, the niggling urge to search for the ma falling away.

Washed out by clean white light, it is the brightest place in the dimmed apartment, offering enough visibility to deter clumsy accidents involving the numerous bottles, bowls, and plates cluttered around. 

A long, bi-level peninsula curves out and doubles as a bar. Three stools line the outer edge of the counter, each one gratefully unoccupied, matched by three drop lights dangling from the ceiling that make the granite and glass beneath them sparkle. He edges around the peninsula to deposit the dirtied wine and shot glasses into the sink, running the tap beneath them for a cursory rinse until he can throw them all into the dishwasher later. The nearly empty tequila goes back with the rest of the bottles sprouting like a cityscape from the countertop, and he offers a practiced smile to three people perusing the selection there. Three faces he doesn’t know, but they all respond in kind with smiles and nods of acknowledgement. 

Ennoshita turns away and tugs open a drawer, drops the corkscrew into it, and skirts back out of kitchen before a need to make small talk arises.

The kitchen opens immediately back out into the living area, offering an inviting view of both spaces no matter where one stood. He walks first to the wine cabinet pressed against the wall nearby, giving the door a cursory tug to verify that it’s still locked, thinking back to that flicker of insult on Tanaka’s face at Ennoshita’s poor humor. _Not a thief indeed._ It must have sounded like an accusation instead of a joke. Maybe he should have apologized to Tanaka properly when he still had the chance.

 _Too late for that,_ he chides, plinking a finger against an abandoned wine glass ringed by a spill of liquid, setting an ugly stain onto the cabinet’s lacquered top that will no doubt turn stickier the longer it remains there. Yet another thing to be cleaned up later. 

Turning about, he scans the living room.

His apartment has an open floor plan and a clean, minimalist decor that he feels like he would ruin if he ever tried to personally style the space on his own. Hardwood floors and a high ceiling leaves everything wide and interrupted only by the furniture arranged throughout the space, so that the living room was most clearly designated by the placement of couches, chairs, dimmed down lamps, and tables around a large rug. Most of the remaining attendants were there or in the wider open area beyond the couches. 

Music pulses from the speakers and spills atmosphere into the room, encouraging people to mingle and talk. Couples, bunches of threes or more, entire friend groups standing and swaying in clumps rather than the frenetic masses of a few hours ago. He recognizes more faces than before: casual acquaintances, a classmate from a shared lecture who he thinks is called Hamada, a girl a year above him who likes to frequent his parties, another young occupant of the building who occasionally says hello ever since the mailman mixed up one of their packages a few months ago. 

There’s a different sort of energy filling the space now. Lively, muted, something more similar to ones he knows from childhood when the constant, quiet murmur and tinkle of a song would keep him awake even after he was allowed to leave and go to bed to rest before an impending school day. When he would tense up at the footfalls and shadows that crept past his door as wayward guests sought a bathroom, always thinking that someone might accidentally throw his door open and enter his room, all the while wondering who his parents might be talking to in that same instant. 

Now he makes it a rule to keep certain parts of his apartment off limits. His bedroom. The guest room. The balcony. Those spheres of privacy that won’t be interrupted no matter how much of his home he opens up to the whims of the public.

He spots someone hovering near the entertainment system, one of the more expensive personal touches Ennoshita treated himself to after moving in. An indulgent sound system as good for listening to music as it is for creating immersive movie-watching sessions. The pair of floor standing speakers on either side of the tv came on the recommendation of an underclassman who, judging from the startlingly informative conversation on home audio equipment and the chunky headphones constantly adorning his neck, was something of an audiophile, although he’s not sure if Tsukishima would balk from having that label slapped onto him. Ennoshita isn’t versed in the pros and cons of electronics, so the advice had spared him from having to search around lost in an electronics store and, as an extension of gratitude, he has been rather free with inviting the other over whenever he hosts.

A cursory glance doesn’t reveal Tsukishima in the vicinity though, and Ennoshita tries not to feel disappointed at the lack of a guest he genuinely would have enjoyed hanging out with. If Tsukishima had been present at all he most likely left with the earlier, more rambunctious (and simultaneously more time conscious) crowd. 

As he continues to scan around no glaring signs of mischief leaps to his eyes. No one is acting too rowdy. Nothing is lying on the floor broken into pieces. No one tries to hail him. Everything looks to be in order, but he reminds himself to perform a more thorough inspection later.

For now he turns down a darkened hallway, trailing a hand against the wall until his fingers meets the doorknob to his bedroom. It clicks unlocked when he slides his key in and walks past the threshold, closing the door behind him. Inside the room is dim, lit only by a bedside alarm clock and a haze of city light shining in through the open windows. Ennoshita finds his way to his bed with ease, laying Tanaka’s jacket down at the foot of it before falling onto the mattress himself with a heavy sigh. 

The music is quieter again, muffled by short distance and the walls of his room, but he’s sure that if he listened closely the _boom boom boom_ of the bass line would hijack his stolen serenity again.

So he tunes it all out for a moment, just like he had on the balcony, trading the twinkling city lights for the dim sparks beneath his closed eyelids. He feels that sweet, off-kilter eye-of-the-storm sensation begin to lap at his toes, alone and apart like this. It descends oppressive yet expected to settle in his bones until they feel too heavy to move. Like he could melt into bed and eventually find sleep. Outside, the track changes, and Ennoshita has enough presence of mind to think that whoever threw together this playlist must keep wildly eclectic tastes.

And then he tries not to think about anything at all, but his mind determinedly leaps to schoolwork.

It is a school night. A reckless night for everyone here who has decided to shrug off responsibility for a fun time. The crowd he saw hadn’t been bursting at the seams, but sizeable still.

A mounted clock shows the hour ticking close to two in the morning. Ennoshita stares at it, thinks about the errands and chores that need to be done in the morning, the people who need to stagger their way back home or to the nearest cab, and resigns himself to one of his least favorite parts of hosting parties: winding them down.

Most seem to get the message when Ennoshita brightens all the lights and turns the music down to a barely-there hum. There are a few groans and much feet shuffling as his guests make their way to the door, gathering up jackets and taking rushed final sips of their drinks. Some greet him, thank him, compliment the party and encourage him to throw another one soon.

Twenty minutes later, as he disengages with a few friendly stragglers lingering at the door, he realizes that he hasn’t seen Tanaka not once since leaving the balcony.

*

“Are you as dead on the inside as you look on the outside?” Kinoshita greets the next noon, pausing before the table with two hot drinks in hand. His eyes drop down to study the marks scrawled on the side of one cup and he hands Ennoshita the bigger cup in his left. 

Ennoshita reaches for it with the single-mindedness that his sleep deprived state deserves. Among the perpetually caffeinated thrum of his fellow students Ennoshita is no exception. His sleep schedule fluctuates wildly sometimes, averaging on a refreshing four or five hours if he’s lucky and, fittingly, his taste in the coffee that he liberally consumes is just as extreme. He’s either in the mood for a totally black roast, plain, no cream or sugar to taint the caffeine he wanted to pump through his system, or an overly sweetened concoction that barely deserved the name coffee. 

It’s the latter today, a wonderful abomination of a vanilla macchiato with whipped cream, shaved dark chocolate, and an extra shot of espresso. Kinoshita never fails to humor him with complete acceptance and an impressively detail-orientated memory whenever he buys him a drink, bar the occasional case of brazen smugness – like now. When Ennoshita takes a desperate yet polite sip of coffee Kinoshita’s lips quirk up in a smirk, the first sign of an incoming remark, likely snide. It crumples into an expression of muted horror when Ennoshita pops the lid off his cup, rips open a packet of salt, and adds a dash of it to the macchiato.

Kinoshita shivers dramatically. “The things you do to your food are never not weird.”

“You’re my favorite,” Ennoshita answers, mouth muffled against the lip of the cup. The sugar is the kind that coats his tongue and lingers there, thick, rich, chased by the strong bitterness of espresso that becomes less overwhelming with each sip. The light milkiness of the whipped cream adds a softer note of sweetness to the mix, and Ennoshita sighs appreciatively. 

Kinoshita seems half miffed and half satisfied by the response. 

“I’m sitting right here,” Narita pipes up from his seat across from Ennoshita, where he’s thoroughly distracted by the splay of notes crowding his side of the table. It’s a rare free day when he’s not stuck in one lab or another, allowing the three of them to get together for a snack run between classes and other obligations. But Narita has an exam to study for and his eyes have been plastered to complicated terminology from the moment he pulled his chair back and sat down. He’s stuck in the shadow of a successful family too; owners of an influential medical and pharmaceutical company with an innovative and grasping research branch. 

Narita seems to navigate whatever pressures he might and must face with greater ease than Ennoshita does, as quiet as they both are about it. But it’s clear in moments like this, when Narita’s stooped over his books with one hand around a pen and the other pulling at his short hair in a habit he can’t quite kick, that he harbors a quiet stress and passion for the medical field that’s all genuine, bearing his burdens with the promise that he might do something he truly loves one day.

 _You’re my favorite too,_ Ennoshita thinks, watching Narita flip through pages. 

“How was work?” he says instead. 

Kinoshita promptly folds his arms onto the table with a groan. “I had to tell someone how to connect to wifi again.”

“So the same as usual?” Narita adds without looking up, pen tip caught on his bottom lip. It stays there for a second before lowering to scribble down a note.

“Imagine this: It’s the twenty first century, right?” Kino moves his drink to the side, his freed up hands immediately become alive and gestural, nearly as entertaining to watch as the words that leave his mouth, that introduction feeling like the rise of a theater curtain. “You would think that people know how a wifi hotspot works by now? Or that they know how to do basic troubleshooting it if they run into some tiny connection problems? I usually don’t jump to the ‘just turn it off and back on’ method but seriously, disconnecting and re-connecting is a good place to start here. That’s _common sense._ Why wouldn’t turning it off and back on not be something you try on your own? And anyway, the instructions on the school website aren’t _that_ hard to follow. I would know since I helped fix the confusing nonsense that the designer had up there before we got here. It’s just a one time thing to get yourself set up with the school’s network. If you go too far from the spot your connection will drop and you have to find some other net to plug in to, or use your own data. Is that really so hard to understand?” He looks imploringly between them, punctuating the rant with a final, emphatic, “Right?”

Ennoshita’s eyebrows cant upward and Narita gives a distracted hum. Kinoshita isn’t at all bothered by their lukewarm responses, going on to outline a few more of his daily woes, including a riveting story about an IT help-desk phone exchange lasting thirty – _thirty!!_ – minutes long, a conversation concluded by the words ‘Oh, sorry, it really hadn’t been plugged in.’

“Oh, sorry!” Kinoshita repeats with vigor, fingers splayed. “I guess I wasn’t listening to the very first thing you suggested doing! My mistake!”

Ennoshita sighs into his coffee. When Kinoshita grew animated he was really, very animated.

This story is followed by an agonizing description of Kinoshita getting stuck behind a gaggle of well-dressed business students while he was in a rush make it to a lecture across campus in time. He arrived to the building late. He launches into a small tirade against heels – “Nothing against fashion choices but it stresses me out when all I hear is _click click click!_ behind me but they won’t speed up and just go around? Like, thanks for the extra anxiety, I really needed it today.” Only pausing when Narita tells him his tea has probably grown gross and lukewarm by now. 

The way Kinoshita’s tongue pokes past his lips after he downs a sip, face pulled into a grimace, seems to confirm the prediction.

A welcome lull settles over the table. Ennoshita isn’t rushed to break it. He’s still dead tired and all of the sugar in his drink might be doing him more harm than good. But it tastes good and he’s loathe to waste it. Kinoshita seems to be doing the same thing, downing his lukewarm tea with an occasional noise of disgust spilling from his mouth.

“You have to remember that not everyone is as good with computers as you are,” Ennoshita eventually offers, picking up the conversation seamlessly despite the pause. Kinoshita grunts, takes another half-hearted sip and says, “Are you talking about yourself?”

“No, I’m talking about your near addiction to certain games segueing almost directly into your choice of major.”

“The time I spent in video game hell has nothing to do with this.”

“Spent? Past tense?”

“Fine, the time I _spend_ in—”

“Of course not,” Ennoshita interjects.

“Okay, asshole,” Kinoshita jerks a thumb at Narita. “How do you explain mad scientist Kazu over there?”

They both look their friend over. Ennoshita releases a thoughtful hum. “It’s always the quiet ones?”

“Still here,” Narita says, flipping a page.

“Enough about us,” Kinoshita turns in his seat. Ennoshita has an inkling of dread for whatever’s about to come from his mouth next. “How was your party?”

And there it was. Even though his two best friends could rarely afford to attend his parties anymore, preferring to hang out on a smaller scale, they both still liked to debrief Ennoshita after a party and tease out the most interesting stories. Usually he doesn’t mind weaving a tale or two for them. There’s always a least one thing he’s seen that he can offer or truss up, add on dressings until they’re both amused and aware that he’s treading into the realm of pure fiction.

He can’t muster up the will to story tell today. 

“Lively,” Ennoshita answers, succinct even while feeling a contradictory verbosity rise in his chest. Not a story, but a confession. The words are burning right there on the tip of his tongue, wanting to be loosed: _I met someone._

“Anything weird happen this time?” Kinoshita asks.

“I don’t think so,” Ennoshita slouches further into his seat, wishing he’d ordered a bigger coffee. Or maybe a real coffee. “At least not while I was watching.”

“Sounds better than that one time someone tried to chug from your mom’s fancy vase.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Narita suddenly looks up and leans forward. “I thought you were just tired but you’re actually hungover right now, aren’t you?”

“Amazing,” Kinoshita mutters. “How could you tell? He looks the same as usual.”

“He’s not talking as much.”

“Like I said.” Kinoshita insists, gesturing. “Same as usual.”

“His shirt tag has been sticking out all day and he hasn’t noticed it yet,” Narita adds.

Ennoshita’s hand flies to the back of his neck, fingertips trailing along his collar until they land upon the tag. “Wow,” he drily says, tucking it down. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Narita grins.

“How do you always forget to drink water?” Kinoshita chides.

“You know how he falls asleep like a baby. I really don’t think he ever gets past tipsy and he’s just a lightweight.”

“Okay,” Ennoshita tries again. “Thank you.”

They spend a few more minutes like that, bantering mostly at Ennoshita’s expense, until Ennosita toys with his empty cup and gives in with a sigh.

“I might have met someone,” he says.

“What? _Might_ have? Why didn’t you say something like that _first?”_

“Because I knew you’d dig for more, Kino. You’re such a gossip.”

“It’s not gossip if it’s about my best friend, it’s caring. Caring is sharing. Currently waiting for the sharing.”

“Who is he?” Narita supplies. “Or she?”

“He. And I really don’t know.”

“Oh, come on.”

Ennoshita rips several lines into the cardboard coffee sleeve and then pushes the entire cup away before his poor manners get the best of him, carefully lacing his fingers together instead. “His name is Tanaka. He’s…”

All of the simple physical descriptors he could provide desert him. He remembers the raucous way Tanaka laughs, eyes squinted tight, head thrown back, that stud of metal resting in the center of his tongue inviting Ennoshita’s eyes like the flash of a pearl couched in an oyster. He remembers the taste of wine, the scent of smoke curling in the air. He remembers them laying back and watching the sky, feeling the reverberations of every bass line seep into their backs, Tanaka’s foot jiggling over his crossed leg to a beat of his own creation. He remembers the tone of Tanaka’s voice being as rough around the edges as his punk rock clothing, with the exception of the one time he sang along to a catchy pop song filtering through the balcony door and his voice had dipped into a pleasant croon that he laughed away as self-taught when Ennoshita complimented it. He remembers straying onto the topic of sports and sharing expressions of surprise upon learning that they both played volleyball in high school, both wing spikers. 

(“Ace in my last year,” Tanaka had puffed, to which he’d replied “Captain”. Tanaka said it suited him before suggesting that they play together some time, just like that, and Ennoshita had softly agreed as if he hadn’t been off the court for years.)

“I can’t believe this,” Kinoshita quietly mutters. Ennoshita looks up to see even Narita looking thoroughly intrigued at Ennoshita’s lapsed silence. “You’re telling us more about this Tanaka guy later. It’s almost the hour and we all need to get going.”

“Oh,” Ennoshita drily cheers. “Yay.”

Kinoshita scrapes his chair back, head shaking. “You won’t be saved by the bell next time!”

“I’m actually with him on that on,” Narita adds, zipping up his bag while Kinoshita dashes to the nearest trashcan to dump their empty drinks.

“As if you’re ever against him,” Ennoshita retorts.

Narita smiles. “Well, actually-”

“Oh, no. No thank you. Good luck on your exam. Goodbye.”

Ennoshita spins around to the sound of Narita’s chuckle on his heels.

*

Classes are a blur of PowerPoint slideshows, chatty professors, and heads-down, fingers aching note-taking. 

The beginning of the week is always agonizingly lecture heavy to prepare for discussions and presentations later on. Econ certainly isn’t the most forgiving major even on the best of days, as much as he enjoys the way it makes him think. By the end of the hour his handwriting has degraded into a messy scrawl and he’s very much looking forward to the one fun elective he let himself sign up for at the beginning of the semester: black room photography.

It’s much more time consuming than he could have ever guessed when he first managed to squeeze into the overwhelmingly popular course. Three hours of coursework in the class itself, a daunting chunk of time which most art majors he’s met hardly bat an eyelash at and which he finds does pass faster than expected. Plus many more hours of homework assignments which required roaming around the city for good shots and subjects. 

The workload is certainly tedious on those days when his major demands more attention, but Ennoshita doesn’t hate being forced to take out his camera and wander a little – it’s a small freedom, a salve over an ache which reminds him even now how, back in high school, he had kept brochures for art schools in a bin underneath his bed. 

In the end, there came that consensus. The curtain drop. Not exactly spoken out loud during counseling sessions or over the dinner table, but apparent in so many other ways: What of job security? What kind of viable career options would a film major really give him? It was always _hobby_ not _passion,_ not even when Ennoshita was pulling together a network from schools all the way from Miyagi to Tokyo, or at that last wrap party in his third year when it felt as a book were closing on a story not yet concluded.

Not a thought he dwells on anymore. He’s here, his bed made, his regrets appeased between the sheets.

Photography is rewarding enough that he can’t truly complain anyway, even though he quickly finds that it’s not the perfect fit for him. Then again, being around someone like Akaashi does much for realizing the gulf between dabbling in a fun class and pursuing a true interest. 

Akaashi is brilliant even to an amateur’s eye. Perhaps even more because of it. As captivating as man’s first discovery of flames.

He has more photos of Akaashi than he’d like to admit too, but he’s seen Akaashi unapologetically frame him within his own camera lens too. They’ve come to a tacit acceptance when it came to being the center of each other’s candids – a small, comfortable cheat if ever an assignment wanted a human model.

“I feel like a caveman seeing light for the first time,” Akaashi comments upon exiting the darkroom, eyes thinned to squint through the assaulting too-bright fluorescents lining the ceiling. They’ve been developing and testing strips and printing for well over an hour, a generous amount of that time filled with Akaashi handing Ennoshita pointers on how to plan the process so he doesn’t get caught in the middle of it.

The sharp scent of developing fluid clings to the back of Ennoshita’s throat when he opens his mouth to say, “Likewise.”

“I wish I could have gotten to my last roll.”

“You can’t stay in there forever. It has to be bad for your senses. All that dark.”

Akaashi gives a careless shrug and sits on a stool, opening up his mac book. Ennoshita doesn’t have to glance at the screen to know it’s a program for one of his other classes. There’s nothing but clicking as Akaashi delves into his work, Ennoshita quietly following suit by taking out his planner to check due dates and prioritize his homework.

“So,” Akaashi eventually says, bouncing a finger thoughtfully against a key. _Tap tap tap._ “Tanaka.”

“Have I ever mentioned how I hate our friend group’s rumor mill?”

Akaashi doesn’t respond other than tipping down the lid of his laptop to peer at Ennoshita over it, but there’s a definite quirk to his lips. 

“You’re curious, aren’t you?” Ennoshita asks.

“I am curious. It’s rare news to hear that you might have a love interest.”

Eyes wide, Ennoshita wants to either sputter or laugh. “Oh, no. That’s too heavy a word for it. I didn’t think you were interested in that kind of gossip either.”

“It’s not gossip if it’s happening to someone I know. It’s staying informed”

“God, you really have been talking to Kinoshita. That would be a lot more believable coming from you if I didn’t know that you kept lists on people.” 

“‘Prone to changing the subject to divert attention,’” Akaashi announces in a measured tone. “‘Effectiveness? Sporadic.’”

But he lets it go, and Ennoshita is grateful for the tact even as he resents how the interlude has turned his thoughts back to Tanaka, where it has wandered far too often for comfort throughout the day. He wants this silly preoccupation gone already; buries himself in his readings until his mind is full of economic theories instead of smoke and stars.

Later when they spill out of the art building together, walking beneath the checkered haloes of streetlights lining the sidewalk, Akaashi comments lightly, “You seem good.”

Ennoshita doesn’t have the heart to feel annoyed anymore by veiled questions like that. Good intent goes a long way toward softening one’s self-possession. 

The streets around campus have emptied out, dark and quiet. He wants to pause and savor it a little, yield to the night’s mood. Wait beneath the briny yellow of the lamp so he can catch the way it gleams over Akaashi’s curly hair. 

He would need a tripod for that though, or a steadier hand than he’d ever have for a long exposure shot.

“Yeah,” Ennoshita answers, soft yet truthful. “I’m fine.”

*

“So how’s Leather Jacket doing?” Kinoshita asks abruptly, throwing his legs across the length of the couch.

“Please don’t make it sound like a military operation.”

“Okay,” Kinoshita says. “How’s your wannabe paramour doing?”

Ennoshita’s groan is lost beneath the sound of Narita laughing. Kinoshita whips his head around and grins, prompting Narita to shift his eyes from the television long enough to smile at his friend. They’re cute, Ennoshita muses. They have that quiet, subtle link born from years of friendship formed at an early age. That connection is clear in the way they almost always sit opposite in order to see each other, and now when their smiles fade and they share a measured look that was probably mastered in middle school.

Ennoshita shakes his head and picks up the remote to aimlessly fiddle with it, wondering why his life has begun to revolve around this one party and the stranger he met there. How one person can hold so much gravitas, or if it’s Ennoshita’s own weak will latching onto the event, inflating it into something worth more than it is. 

It’s a Thursday, at long last a light day for all three of them, the trio gathered at Ennoshita’s place to unwind from the school week. That they never find a single appealing thing to watch among thousands of channels never fails to astound him. More often than not they resort to settling on something random, Ennoshita’s ample personal library of DVDs, or watch Kinoshita’s slow descent into madness as he plays whatever game he’s caught up in at the moment. Today it’s a shooter game, the sounds of battle and dialogue pouring out of the speakers at a near constant rate. There’s a dialogue box in one corner so it must be an MMO of sorts. Ennoshita can hardly tell who’s winning or losing in the chaos. The screen bounces up and down a lot. Even more confusing, Kinoshita seems to be playing a giant gorilla.

“Well, fuck you too!” Kinoshita yells.

Narita graces Kinoshita with a snort that sounds incredibly endeared.

Ennoshita has already weathered the worst of their curiosity about Tanaka Ryuunosuke – codename: Leather Jacket, courtesy of (of course) Kinoshita. He’s confessed essential details from the party and shirked requests for updates on his status with Tanaka, as if Ennoshita has called or texted that number scrawled the receipt. He certainly hasn’t. The jacket with the dragon on its back hangs in his closet.

Curiosity is a persistent thing though.

“Anyway,” Narita says, prompting Ennoshita to play closer attention what could be the start of an agonizing attempt at a heart-to-heart. Or at least as close to a heart-to-heart as their trio could muster, which were usually a few wise lines that devolved into barbs and humor wrapped in a healthy dose goodwill. “Even though your parties are so popular you never mention them anymore, so I always wonder if you’re even having fun at them? It sounds like this guy really made an impression on you, so… You shouldn’t give that up.”

Ennoshita relents, able to subsume his own irritation to bluntly ask, “Did I make it sound like I was into him?”

Narita hums, caught. “Maybe a little?”

“It’s not just that. You can sit on a decision for ages,” Kinoshita cuts in, button mashing, somehow not dying on screen. His multitasking prowess is almost a horror. “Like when you spent half an hour deciding whether you should get two blu-ray dvds or the director’s cut edition of some weird sci-fi movie.”

“Once,” Ennoshita says, wondering when that single event would finally be allowed to rest. “There’s no shame in making thoughtful purchases.”

“Except you ended up buying all three.”

“I’ll admit to that,” Ennoshita concedes. “But movies and people are two separate things.”

“Exactly! You can’t buy people at all.”

“The train track is here, Hisashi,” Narita says, putting his palms together and shooting one hand far out to the side. “And you’re derailing all the way over here.”

“So theatric,” Kinoshita tuts.

“You two are making it sound like I’m lonely.”

They share another quick glance that Ennoshita can’t quite interpret, but it doesn’t look like a tacit agreement, just something careful and considerate, so he says nothing until Narita looks his way again.

“It’s not a bad thing to want to see someone again…” Narita starts.

“We’ve all gotten busier this semester too,” Kinoshita seamlessly hops in. “Right? And this is our last year together. We really have to focus on getting through it with good marks so we don’t get the chance to hang out as much as we used to. So if you can go out and meet new people then… You should do that, you know?” 

“I know,” Ennoshita murmurs, choosing to look at the action on the tv screen rather than darting his gaze back and forth between his two friends. It clicks then that they’re just trying to look out for him, to make sure he’s enjoying himself rather than coasting by. As many friendly classmates and acquaintances as he has, he doesn’t hang out with many people outside of a trusted few.

“So just, like,” Kinoshita bobs his head. “Talk to us and I promise I’ll stop being such a nuisance about everything.”

“You’re not a nuisance, Kino.”

“It’s sweet of you to lie like that, Chikara.”

Ennoshita laughs, feeling lighter for it.

“If you ever need any help with Operation Leather Jacket-” Narita’s offer is interrupted by the sound of Kinoshita cackle. He makes only a semblance of trying to stifle it. Narita continues despite the blush that leaps onto his face, and Ennoshita realizes he really wasn’t trying to crack a joke. After that all he can do is bury his amusement in a tight smile. “We’re here for you.”

“Thank you, Kazu, I’ll think about it. Even if I would never trust you two enough to be my wingmen.”

“Ah, friendship,” Narita mutters, playfully betrayed.

Kinoshita huffs a dramatic sigh. “You kids and your love lives.” Ennoshita accepts two sympathetic pats on his back, grateful when Kinoshita draws away to focus on a new match, the interrogation over with at last.

*

He can’t realistically hold onto the jacket forever, after all. But he has no idea if Tanaka attends his university, if he attends university at all, or whether he’s from the immediate area. It isn’t rare for people from distant places to show up at one of his parties after hearing about it or being invited by friends. There’s no guarantee that he’ll see any of them again. If that were the case, if his and Tanaka’s meeting really was a one time thing, it would be easy to mail a package anywhere in Tokyo or outside the city. Even if it means sacrificing the want for another face-to-face encounter that’s been building somewhere inside him for the past few days. 

He doesn’t want to examine why that sacrifice makes disappointment bloom in his chest.

Because, to tell the truth, he wants to feel that connection again. The magic of pleasant chance encounters, the bass thrumming through his body and wine loosening his mind, to know if the ease that filled him on that night was a singular or something that could be held again. If it could happen again. If he could be salvaged.

The more he thinks about it the more obvious it becomes that he’s building a castle in the sky. He knows he’s beginning to invest too much in what had been a very inconsequential meeting. Ultimately, a forgetful one. Clicking with someone at a party is one thing, but outside of that, outside of a guest being nice to a host... What does Ennoshita have to offer? Some people are always able to make friends quicker than he thinks humanly possible. Where a week or two could mean he finally matches the names and faces of everyone in a seminar, the same amount of days could show two classmates smiling and greeting each other like they had been friends of years. He can thank his upbringing for forging an aptitude at remembering the people around him yet somehow, undeniably, it is a talent that feels useless in the face of such easy, enviable camaraderie.

Like Tanaka.

It feels dangerous wanting to see someone without knowing why too, like he’s forfeiting some control over himself without knowing if the gamble will help or harm him in the future. And Ennoshita has no idea if he wants to forge any kind of relationship at all. Whether it’s some strange desperation making him feel this way or the tug of a real connection.

He has no reason to feel lonely, privileged as he is with good things and good friends.

But Tanaka had left his phone number. That implies a want to have a connection too, doesn’t it?

“Or maybe he just wanted his stupid jacket back,” he mutters, tapping in his phone’s lock code to open the contact list.

He doesn’t give himself time to stall before he hits the correct number, transcribed from the receipt and saved days ago, and watches the screen melt into the calling screen. For lack of anything to toy with, his free hand begins tapping his pen against the open notebook perched in his lap. There’s chatter all around. He’s in the lobby of one of the school buildings sitting in one of the god cushioned chairs, a popular lounge spot between classes crowded with students going about his business. Ennoshita discovered years ago that he manages himself better in public rather than in private. Here he can’t risk making a scene or raising his voice. He can be calm, talk with the awareness that he’s not alone, ground himself with glances at the people and things around him, and hopefully not make a fool of himself.

Two rings… Three. They drag on, shrill. What if he misread the number and called up a random person? He’s thrown out that scrap of paper days ago too so there is no double-checking it. Phone anxiety usually doesn’t plague him but a moment of it lurches up in the gaps between the dial tones, making him miss the days when he could twirl a landline’s coiled rope between his fingers. Tendrils of unease dig their claws in and deepen his hesitation, and he already knows it will later translate into him being clumsy with his greeting, at a loss on how to compose a smooth opening line. 

Silences don’t sit as well over the phone as they do on a night-shrouded balcony hanging high over Tokyo. 

The dial drags on for so long that he half expects the call to drop out – an anonymous number in the middle of the day had every right to be ignored – so he startles when the call finally picks up.

“’llo?” A voice on the other end of the line says. 

Ennoshita adjusts his grip on the phone cradled against his ear. “Hello?” He winces. Great start.

“Who’s this?”

“Ennoshita. From the party.”

He waits for an awkward pause or a ‘Who?’ but it only takes a few seconds before the voice returns, bright with recognition. “Ennoshita from the party!”

He doesn’t sigh with relief, but it’s a very near thing. He leans in back in the chair, realizing that his posture had gone ramrod straight. “I still have your jacket.”

“Ah? And here I thought you were gonna go through with your petty theft after I’d been so nice to give you a blanket. I wanted to get some dirt on you too.”

“After I woke up,” Ennoshita starts, ignoring Tanaka’s snorted comment of ‘lightweight’. “After I woke up my very expensive bottle of wine was nowhere to be seen. Isn’t that suspicious?”

“Hey, that’s because we both finished that stuff off.”

“Did we? I don’t remember drinking that much.”

“Dude, yeah, that’s because, again, you are a complete _lightweight._ We ploughed through that stuff even though you kept saying we should slow down and appreciate the ‘aroma’ or something like that, something about how old and _lush_ it was. Your word, not mine - _lush._ It was it was hilarious. You were like ‘oh we need to swirl it around and drink it like two old men up in—‘”

“I’m sorry, is that supposed to sound like me?”

“Yeah,” Tanaka’s voice drips into an even more exaggerated tone. “‘Like two old men up in a posh cruise yacht’—“

“A what?”

“A cruise yacht.” Tanaka pauses. “…Wait, don’t tell me you’ve been on an actual yacht before. Did I just say something stupid? Did I just use the salad fork for dessert or something?”

Ennoshita mindlessly doodles loops across a blank page, fighting off a laugh, but amusement huffs from his nose anyway. Tanaka is laughing too, a full sound, easy with his own lack of knowledge rather than embarrassed by it, and Ennoshita gets the creeping suspicion that he may enjoy this person’s company far too much far too soon, taking delight in his engaging casualness a little too much. He wants to caution himself, to reel it in and allow his usual sluggish period of getting to know someone in gradations, but it feels good just talking naturally like this to someone whose friendliness helps to bring out some of his own, the vague weight that’s always pressed around him lifting off his shoulders so completely (and _that’s_ a dangerous feeling too, something he doesn’t want to have attached to a specific person). 

He briefly considers bringing up the distinction between cruises and cruiser yachts and cruises _on_ cruiser yachts, none of which he actually had any experience enjoying more than a handful of times, but he recognizes that any explanation would likely sound preachy, annoying, or both. 

So he settles for a mild, “I think it’s rude to call people out on their bullshit when they’re trying to be genuine.”

 _“Language,”_ Tanaka hisses after a beat, sounding surprised but pleased, like he hadn’t expected Ennoshita capable of a foul tongue but found it appealing. For some reason it engenders a small flame of pleasure within Ennoshita too, that he could be new and surprising. “You’ll hurt my delicate sensibilities, man.”

“Of course.”

“You are so blue blooded though,” Tanaka continues, and Ennoshita can’t detect any distaste in the sigh that blows over the line, so he doesn’t take offense to the term. “And then, no joke, you started flirting with me.”

“What?” Ennoshita laughs again, the breathy nervous kind he can never quite swallow down. His pen tip dips too hard against the paper, leaving an ugly slash as he rides through a wave of embarrassment. “I think you’re making up stories now.” 

The feeling passes surprisingly quickly though, quelling but not crushing, and he finds that he’s not utterly mortified at the thought of engaging in tipsy flirtation. _Had he?_

“Total truth. Cross my heart and all of that.” There’s a pause in which Ennoshita imagines Tanaka performing the gesture. “Unless you’re just a really friendly drunk. It’s hard to tell with people sometimes. Especially strangers.”

“I don’t know,” he hedges. “I usually doze off at some point. You paid witness to that part.”

“Classic sleepy.”

“Is that the official term for it?”

“I also like ‘weak’, but you know. There’s a way to build up your tolerance.”

“Eating, isn’t it? Drinking on an empty stomach can get you intoxicated much faster than if you ate a big meal beforehand, or snacked while drinking.”

“Well, I was about to say drinking a lot of the same thing until you get used to it, but.”

Ennoshita shakes his head.

“It, uh, doesn’t matter to me, you know… whether you’re into guys or girls or whoever. It’s all cool. Just in case you were worried about that.”

“Okay,” Ennoshita replies, for lack of anything better to say. He lets the comment slide without thinking about it too much. (Had that been a hook? Was he supposed to grab onto it? Not here. Tuck it away for later consideration.) He hopes that Tanaka will leave it at that or else he might hang up on a rush of impulsive self-preservation. 

A silence stretches, definitely awkward, soft music playing in the background from Tanaka’s end of the line. It almost sounds classical, but he has a hard time reconciling that with the man’s fashion sense. He senses motion too. A rustling like he’s shifting around. Ennoshita watches a student run across the lobby in a rush, papers clasped in hand, looking thoroughly harried. Late for something important. Closer, he thinks he spots someone else using a text book from one of his own classes.

Slowly, he prompts, “So… Your jacket.”

Tanaka hums. “Oh yeah, I totally forgot. I was wondering if you planned on giving it back at all. It’s been a few days already.”

“I’m sorry about that. I got a little busy with classes.”

“It’s all cool, but it’s starting to get chilly outside and that’s my favorite one.”

“Do you live close by to me?”

A tsk and a clack that Ennoshita blinks to realize could be that tongue piercing. Metal against teeth. “Not really.”

“Then I could… go to wherever you are and drop it off? Or mail it over if that’s easier. Mail might be faster if you’re very far.”

“Nah, don’t bother with the postage. I’m sure we can figure out a way to meet up sometime over the weekend? I’m workin’ both days though…”

“I can manage the trip. At your convenience.”

“Yeah? Cool. I’ll text you the address and stuff later then and you can swing by. Make a little – oi oi, hold _still_ – _Now_ you choose to start acting feisty?” Tanaka crows a sudden laugh and it reminds Ennoshita so much of the night on the balcony that he winces, coming to a harsh realization that the man may not have been alone this entire time. It unsettles him, and then it unsettles him further that he’s unsettled at all.

“I’m sorry, was this a bad time?”

 _“Shit_ —No, you’re good. My girl’s just being a royal _pain in the ass,”_ his voice raises and fades like he’s directing it away from the speaker toward someone else. Irritated but fond. Who could he be talking to like that? Clearly someone familiar.

 _Time to go,_ Ennoshita thinks, _don’t fret._ As he watches a gaggle of friends walk by his mood starts spiraling for absolutely no reason and Ennoshita stiffens; senseless and unwelcome as it always was. “You sound busy. I can leave you to it.”

“Yeah, alright. Sorry for cutting things short.”

“It’s okay,” Ennoshita assures. “Goodbye, Tanaka.”

“I’ll send you my info. And hey, thanks for calling?” Ennoshita hums acknowledgement. There’s a strange, waiting pause; Ennoshita’s pen tapping against paper, that soft music still twinkling in the background. Tanaka sighs. “See ya sometime soon, man.”

Ennoshita hangs up.

He flips a few pages back to his most recent lecture notes and skims the words without really reading them. Faking immersion. Hoping for his nerves to settle. Feeling silly for not ending the call more warmly. At least he hadn’t started mumbling.

Five minutes later his phone buzzes with a new message, an address held within, an invitation to come over Sunday afternoon. Hardly enough time to prepare himself. 

Saving the address beneath Tanaka’s phone number, he stares at it for a moment before the screen dims and he remembers where he’s at, the constant chatter breaking his distraction. He straightens up. Releases a long, slow breath and swings his gaze upwards.

Castles in the sky.


End file.
